The Sportsman said: ‘You, as well as the Princess, would have been destroyed by the monster if my shot had not hit him. So she is mine.’
The Tailor said: ‘And if I had not sewn the ship together with my skill, you would all have been drowned miserably. Therefore she is mine.’
The King said: ‘Each of you has an equal right; but, as you can’t all have her, none of you shall have her. I will give every one of you half a kingdom as a reward.’
The Brothers were quite satisfied with this decision, and they said: ‘It is better so than that we should quarrel over it.’
So each of them received half a kingdom, and they lived happily with their Father for the rest of their days.
The Lady and the Lion
THERE was once a Man who had to take a long journey, and when he was saying good-bye to his daughters he asked what he should bring back to them.
The eldest wanted pearls, the second diamonds, but the third said, ‘Dear father, I should like a singing, soaring lark.’
The father said, ‘Very well, if I can manage it, you shall have it’; and he kissed all three and set off. He bought pearls and diamonds for the two eldest, but he had searched everywhere in vain for the singing, soaring lark, and this worried him, for his youngest daughter was his favourite child.